Purge of Babylon (Short Story): Mason's War Read online

  Mason opened the door before he knew what he was doing (“You idiot, stay inside!” the voice shouted. “They haven’t seen you yet! Maybe they’ll leave after they get the girl!”) and stepped out onto the balcony.

  He didn’t know how he had missed it before, but there wasn’t just one person out there with Rose. There were nearly half a dozen of them, and while the one trying to gun her down had remained behind to aim, the others were giving chase and they were closing in fast. Mason saw black uniforms on the pursuers, identical to the one he was still wearing.

  “Get back inside!” the voice shouted.

  But he didn’t, and instead Mason waved his arms and shouted at Rose, “Get down! Get the hell down, you stupid kid!”

  Rose either didn’t hear him or didn’t care what he was screaming, because she never slowed down. If anything, it almost looked as if she was picking up speed.

  Damn, she’s fast!

  But was she fast enough?

  Thirty yards…

  Twenty-five…

  The shooter had the best view of the house, including Mason screaming and waving his arms like a maniac to get Rose’s attention. The realization hit him just before the man fired, and a bullet zipped! over Mason’s head and splintered the wall behind him.

  He dropped to his knees and drew the Sig Sauer, and looked through the railing as Rose continued racing in his direction.

  Twenty yards…

  Fifteen…

  The closest pursuer was barely ten yards behind her, but he was bigger and taller with longer legs, and he was gaining.

  Oh, hell, Mason thought, and stood up and fired over Rose’s head.

  He wasn’t really trying to hit anyone—even if he could hit a moving target at this distance with a handgun—and was mainly just shooting into the thick of the pursuers. It worked, and the men began diving into the grass for cover behind Rose.

  Mason was reloading when the lone rifleman on the other side of the field opened up on him and the others quickly joined him. The railing and posts around Mason shattered and kicked rotting wood into his face, and all he could see was splintered bark flying everywhere.

  “Goddammit!” he shouted, and dropped to his knees again.

  This time instead of doing something stupid like stand back up to cover the girl’s retreat, he opted for the smart move (“A little too late for that, you peckerhead!”) and began crawling toward the open door even as bullets screamed in the air around him, the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire growing exponentially louder with every haggard breath he managed to pull into his lungs.

  He had lost sight of Rose as soon as he went down the second time, and Mason thought, Good luck, kid! as he crawled on his hands and knees through the open doorframe. He was halfway inside, with wood and pieces of glass breaking apart everywhere, when there was a sudden gust of wind, and he looked up just in time to see a small figure flying over him.

  “Jesus!” he shouted as Rose landed inside the house and went down in a pile.

  She’d done the move with such reckless abandon that he almost laughed, but the continuous pop-pop-pop and exploding house to his left and right and above dampened the jovial mood quickly.

  “What are you worried about her for?” the voice asked. “The kid’s going to outlive you!”

  Mason couldn’t disagree with that, so he concentrated on crawling the rest of the way inside the building before turning and reaching up and throwing the door closed. The slab of wood hadn’t completely latched into place before gunfire ripped through it, so many bullets at once that there might as well not be a door to close at all.

  “Well, there goes that plan!” the voice laughed. “Got anything else?”

  He didn’t, except to keep crawling on his hands and knees until he had reached the safety of the counter and slid behind it.

  Rose was already back there, leaning against the wall looking at him while clutching her rifle to her body like a lifeline. A stampeding herd of bulls pounded against his chest as he pulled himself over to the wall and sucked in a large, deep breath.

  He was still struggling with the adrenaline when the shooting stopped, and the only sounds left were his and Rose’s haggard breathing and the pieces of the house crumbling around them from the onslaught. There was barely anything of the door left, along with the windows, and too many holes in the walls to count. Morning rays flooded the room, bright and unforgiving.

  Mason listened for sounds of an incoming assault, for boots rushing up the steps outside, but didn’t hear anything.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “What the hell happened out there?” he asked as he finished reloading the Sig.

  One down…one left. Great.

  “They came out of nowhere,” the teenager said. “I woke up first and thought I’d go look for some crabs on the beach. I saw their truck, and I was running back to the house when they spotted me. They were wearing uniforms.”

  “Yeah, I saw that.”

  “Is it them? From your town?”

  It was never my town, he thought, but didn’t think it mattered anymore, and said, “I don’t know. Maybe. T10’s the closet and everyone in Texas wears the same uniform.” He leaned around the counter to get another look at the door and windows while still listening for what he knew would be coming. If not soon, then eventually. “How many did you see?”

  “I don’t know. A half dozen?” Rose said. “I didn’t have time to count. I was too busy running for my life.”

  He pulled back behind the counter. “Are you hit?”

  She shook her head.

  “Jesus, how is that possible?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess they’re just lousy shots.”

  Guess so, he thought, and said, “Did you get any of them?”

  “Didn’t have time.”

  “I’m going to need the Glock.”

  She nodded, took out the handgun, and passed it over, along with the extra magazine.

  “Conserve your ammo,” Mason said.

  “I know,” she said.

  He smirked and thought, Fourteen-year-old badass. Ange would have loved you, kid.

  “Did you get anyone when you shot at them?” Rose asked.

  He shook his head. “They were too far.”

  “They weren’t that far.”

  “I’m not a dead shot like you, kid. Give me a—”

  “Mason!” a voice shouted from outside. “You in there? Mason!”

  Mason sighed at the familiar voice.

  “Someone you know?” Rose asked.

  “Sorta,” Mason said.

  “You’re surrounded!” the man shouted. “I’m giving you a chance to come back to town with us to answer for what you did! Stay in there, and I’ll give the order to blow you both to hell! Your choice!”

  “That’s not much of a choice,” the voice said.

  Tell me something I don’t already know.

  “You’re screwed.”

  I told you to tell me something I don’t already know…

  FOURTEEN

  MASON HAD PUT the chances of T10 coming after him at around sixty-forty, with the extra ten percent on the side of being pursued based almost entirely on good ol’ fashioned revenge. Mason knew a thing or two about getting back at someone out of spite, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when he heard Paul’s voice outside the house.

  “You have five minutes to decide!” Paul shouted. “After that, we’re knocking this piece of shit house down with you and the girl in it!”

  “That’s mighty generous of him to give us a whole five minutes,” the voice said. “Jocelyn would have only spared five seconds tops. Bitches can be so petty.”

  “Can he do that?” Rose asked next to him.

  “Blow the house up?” Mason said.

  “Yeah…”

  “Firepower isn’t something the towns lack. If anything, after you and your pals started attacking, they’re probably even more armed now. So yeah, he can do what he’s threatening. One of those g
uys might even have a grenade launcher on their rifle. Who the hell knows.”

  She was staring at the door—or what remained of it. It hung on two hinges, the third having been shot loose during the barrage. The door fit perfectly at home with all the gaping holes around them. Mason wondered if Paul knew he wouldn’t even have to use anything like explosives to knock the place down. Another torrent or two from small arms and the two-story structure was liable to tumble to the ground with him in it.

  “Don’t give him any ideas,” the voice said. “Speaking of ideas, have you come up with a way to survive this?”

  Don’t you already know?

  “Ugh.”

  Mason grinned and was glad the girl hadn’t seen it. It would have looked…weird. Or just downright creepy to be smiling to himself like that.

  “There’s no back door, right?” Rose asked.

  “I didn’t find one,” he said.

  “So there’s only the front,” she said, as if that should explain everything.

  And he guessed it did.

  “I knew you were going to be the death of me, kid,” Mason said.

  “Was that before or after I tried to kill you?”

  “Before, during, after, and after, after.”

  “After, after?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  She actually smiled at him that time and didn’t care if he saw it. “And yet you saved my life anyway. I’ll never understand why you did it. I think there’s a word for this.” She thought about it for a moment. “Is it irony?”

  “More like fucking idiotic,” the voice said.

  “Yeah, probably,” Mason said.

  She changed up her grip on the rifle, then started to get up. “I’ll go first—”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “Wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Let me try to talk to him first.”

  “And say what?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Mason got up into a crouch, his bad leg groaning in protest under him. “Make your way to the window, and when I give the signal, start shooting. And don’t stop until they’re all dead.”

  She stared mutely back at him.

  “Understand?” Mason said.

  Rose nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  “Like I said, I’m going to try to talk to him.”

  “You heard what he said. He’s going to kill us. Either here or back in town.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to go back there, Mason. I’m not going back there.”

  “Trust me, kid, I don’t wanna go back there either, because I’m not walking out of that place a second time.”

  “And whose fault is that?” the voice asked.

  He glanced at the door, then back at her. Rose had that same steely resolve he’d seen in the woods when she was trying to kill him. It might have looked even stronger now, somehow more resolute if that was even possible. Then again, he had come to believe that a lot of things were possible when it came to this fourteen-year-old fury Mercer had sicced on them.

  “Just wait for my signal,” Mason said. “Then open up. If you can, try to get Paul first. Once he’s down, maybe the others will run.”

  “You really think they will?”

  Mason shrugged. “They’ve been known to in the past. I doubt any of them has ever actually shot anyone before.”

  “I could tell,” Rose said, brightening up a bit. “I was running in the open and they couldn’t hit me, even when I was running up the stairs. They’re not very good.”

  “They don’t have to be; they just need enough bullets to get the job done.”

  “Which they have…”

  “Yeah.” He looked at what was left of the door, then back at her again. “You ready?”

  She pursed a smile. “No. But whatever.”

  Mason grinned back, thought, You fucking moron, why didn’t you just stay in bed? and began crawling to the door.

  He skirted the sea of broken glass and splintered wood and a bullet casing or two that had somehow been knocked back into the house during his and Rose’s retreat. He was pretty sure he had used up every self-insult he could think of by the time he reached his destination and pried the door open.

  “I have a few left,” the voice said.

  Shove it up your ass.

  The voice laughed. “I would, but you’re using it right now.”

  “Paul!” Mason shouted. “I’m coming out! Let’s talk!”

  He waited for a response.

  Five seconds.

  Ten…

  He glanced back at Rose. She was looking back at him while still crouched next to the counter with the rifle in front of her.

  You’re putting your life in the hands of a fourteen-year-old girl.

  Jesus Christ. How the hell did it all go so wrong?

  Mason faced forward again just as Paul shouted from outside, “Come on out, then! Let’s talk!”

  “Don’t shoot!” Mason shouted back.

  “No one’s shooting! At least not yet!”

  “All right! I’m coming out!”

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!”

  “Gotcha! Hands up!”

  Should have stayed in bed.

  Should have ignored her screaming.

  Should have done a lot of other things, you peckerhead, Mason thought as he stood up and slowly, with hands raised, stepped out onto the balcony.

  HE WAITED for the inevitable gunshot, the single pop! that would cause his brain to blow out the back of his head. The sniper he had seen earlier would have a nice, big, fat target right about now as he exposed himself.

  Here it comes. Here it comes…

  But it didn’t come.

  No one fired.

  At least, not yet.

  “Put a condemned man out of his misery, boys,” the voice cackled.

  Shut up, you’re not helping.

  “Agree to disagree.”

  Three of them—including Paul—were using a white Ford truck as cover. The vehicle hadn’t been sitting in the middle of the gravel parking lot earlier, and Mason was surprised to find it there. Had he actually missed the sound of the engine approaching? Christ. How hard and loud was his heart beating?

  The shock from the vehicle’s presence gave way to fear at the sight of the fourth man standing in the truck bed manning an M60 that was pointed directly at him. That thing alone could have reduced the house to rubble.

  Three more people flanked the parking lot, keeping to the edges where the rocks met the grass. The extra distance gave them a better view of the house, and him. There were two to his right, including the rifleman who had taken the first shots at him, and a final sixth man just off to his left, visible in the corner of Mason’s eye.

  And every weapon was pointed at him, a realization that made him swallow hard and his legs weak, so that he had to struggle to keep upright.

  “This was a very, very bad idea,” the voice said.

  I can still survive this…

  “In what universe?”

  They all had rifles except Paul, who only had a sidearm strapped to his hip. The big bear of a man stood out even behind the large truck.

  “Let’s talk!” Mason shouted, hoping his voice was steady. They were just two words, so he was pretty sure he had gotten them out without his voice cracking. Probably.

  “Okay, let’s talk,” Paul said, and walked out from behind the truck and over to the bottom of the steps.

  Mason went down to join him, keeping his hands raised at all times.

  “You still armed?” Paul asked.

  “What do you think?” Mason said.

  Paul snorted. Mason had the Sig Sauer in his holster, but the Glock Rose had given him was behind his back. The other man didn’t seem all that disturbed by the presence of the visible pistol, and Mason guessed he didn’t have to be. After all, he had every rifle aimed at Mason’s head, not to mention that goddamn M60.

  “Shredded,” the voice said. �
�Like shredded cheese. Remember what Lyle did to Rose’s buddies?”

  Don’t remind me.

  “Someone has to.”

  Yeah, yeah.

  He focused on the machine gun, hoping Rose might see where he was looking and get the hint. If she was even looking out of the house behind him right now.

  Get the M60, kid. Shoot the guy behind the M60 first!

  “You fucked up, Mason,” Paul was saying. There was just a slight smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

  Mason didn’t step down the stairs completely, but stayed two steps above the ground. That put him at almost eye-level with Paul. It was a minor thing, but it made him feel like less of a child being berated by a disapproving parent.

  Or a bear dressed in man’s clothing.

  “Yeah, I realize that now,” Mason said.

  “A little too late, don’t you think?”

  “I have a motto—it’s never too late to change your mind.”

  “In this case, I’m pretty sure it is.” Paul glanced up at the house. “She in there?”

  “She is,” Mason nodded. “How did you find us?”

  “Wasn’t hard. Jocelyn had us scouting up and down the coastline a long time ago, and the marina’s one of the very few places you could have found shelter in last night. It was just a matter of searching all of them.”

  “Jocelyn still not back yet?”

  “Don’t worry about Jocelyn. It’s me you’re answering to right now.” He squinted his eyes at Mason. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know damn well what.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Mason shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You killed Max.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You gutted him like a fucking fish.”

  “I did.”

  “You’re not even going to try to lie your way out of this?”

  “What’s the point? It’s obvious who did it.”

  Paul nodded. He might have even looked mildly impressed with Mason’s honesty. “Where’s Derek?”

  “Who?”

  “Derek.” Paul pointed at the beat-up Nissan parked under the house behind Mason. “That was his patrol vehicle, and he’s missing.”

  “He’s inside,” Mason said.